


The Memory of Fallen Stars

by writerdragonfly



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Isekai, Leslie/OC might be a one off, Life Under the Plate, Modern Character In Gaia, Modern Character in Midgar, Platefall and the Consequences, Potential Cloud Romance (Not OC/Cloud), Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:54:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27691000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerdragonfly/pseuds/writerdragonfly
Summary: A refugee in a land she barely recognizes that follows rules she doesn’t understand, Astraea Edison must forge a life under the false sun of the Sector Five Undercity, or risk becoming a pawn in a war she wants nothing to do with.
Relationships: Leslie Kyle/Original Female Character(s), Original Character & Leslie Kyle & Madam M & Andrea Rhodea, Original Character & Original FF7 Cast, Original Character & Sector Five Residents
Comments: 16
Kudos: 19





	1. Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the original game, the remake, and potentially some of the rest of the compilation.
> 
> I got really bored and started watching Let's Plays of FFVIIR the other night when I had a headache, and it snowballed into trying to finish the remake in hard mode. (It's so hard, dude. My first playthrough was on Classic.)
> 
> Anyway, last night I got this itch in my head for a character perspective in the slums. It became this massive... thing. I'll post a chapter a day until I run out, but I currently have six which is more than usual so maybe I'll actually keep ahead of this.
> 
> As with most of my fics, updates may be slow after these chapters are posted. Please enjoy.

##  _Alone_

Astraea isn’t the kind of person who fits here. She knows poverty from the razor’s edge, childhood on the verge of homelessness under the warmth of her family’s love. An upward struggle, the realization that she has to try and _learn_ if she wants to get past the line between paycheck to paycheck and the beginning of comfortable and safe. 

She cut her teeth on video games and anime, wrote fanfiction, and daydreamed about the future. Worked her ass off to get fifteen dollars an hour and an actual house for rent. 

She didn’t study how to survive the wilderness or make alternatives for her medications or how to fight. 

She’s always _meant_ to because the idea of learning something for fun was always more enticing than schoolwork. 

Instead, she was caught off guard and wrong-footed when it happened, and she would never forgive herself for that. 

  
  


-x-

  
  


The day her entire life changed, Astraea Edison had called in sick. 

She’d slept half-heartedly through the night, struggled to fit herself comfortably on her bed or to quiet her mind long enough to settle regardless. 

She’d been scheduled for eleven but called off by eight when it became obvious that she wouldn’t be able to handle the shift with the sleep she’d managed. Not for the first time, she thought she should probably see a doctor about it. 

Instead, she took a warm shower and braided her hair back still wet and wondered if she was due a haircut yet. 

And then she fell asleep in a blanket fort in her living room, dressed in pajamas and a sweatshirt. 

And then she woke up far, far away from home. 

  
  


-x-

  
  


She didn’t know this then, but the sweater may have saved her life. 

Whatever gods or devils had brought her to Gaia hadn’t had any thought for where they were placing her or her consciousness. (Or her consent, though she supposed it mattered little to whatever power had brought her to this place.)

A man had found her alone in an alley, a small sleeping body nestled between piles of trash. The oversized sweatshirt hid the shape of her body, and though her features were feminine, her hormones had darkened the hair around her mouth sporadically enough to hint at facial hair. 

She didn’t know if he was the first to find her or just the first to care enough to do anything about it. She would carry no aches or pains or torn clothing over her arrival, and she hoped beyond hope that no one had touched her. 

Her savior had a name, but she wouldn’t learn it for years. She saw him sometimes, after, but the reality of his _job_ and her _life_ meant staying away. She knew that, even then. 

He’d been carrying her away from Wall Market when she woke up, and she’d been terrified before she even realized what was happening. 

Everything had been fuzzy, and the air was thick and she hadn’t been held in years—let alone carried. 

She shook with sobs once he’d gently placed her on the ground, her legs giving out before she could even try to use them. He crouched next to her until she calmed down enough to stop hyperventilating, and then told her where she was. 

She didn’t want to believe him, but she did. 

There wasn’t a place like this on Earth, a metal sky as far as the eye could see. 

The bright lights of Sector 6 in the distance were somehow more disturbing once she realized what it meant. 

She hadn’t played the game in years and had never finished the last boss fight. But she remembered Wall Market. The glitchy gun in the automated shop, the tacky Asian theme, Don Corneo’s sleaze. The red-light district.

“Thank you,” she’d told him, and he gave her a hint of a smile. 

The rest of the conversation was fuzzy, but she remembered that. 

He gave her a piggyback ride the rest of the way to Sector Five, where he paid for a night in a cheap little inn for her. She hugged him tightly when he led her inside and ignored the stirring in her gut and the press of him against her. 

He held her face for a moment when they separated. The leather of his gloves was soft, and fingers lingered on the skin of her cheek before they pulled away. She couldn’t explain the moment if she wanted to, but she treasured it all the same. 

She hadn’t been intimate with anyone in years. Her wild sex-crazed years had been broken up with the agony of a lost child, and the idea of being alone had steadied her baser impulses. 

She wanted him, desperately and wholly, but she knew by the look in his eyes that they would both regret it. 

“Thank you,” she said again, hiding her hands in the dark sleeve of her sweatshirt. He hesitated at the door before he left.

She sat on the dusty blanket until the sun rose, staring at the door. 

-x-

The next few days were among the hardest days of Astraea’s life.

Without money, she had nowhere to stay and no food to eat. Without papers, she couldn’t find work. Without marketable skills, she couldn’t even fake it enough for an under the table job. 

She sold her sweatshirt first. It had worked well as a blanket, but the fact of the matter was that good quality fabric was hard to find here. Her sweatshirt had been new, a solid color, machine-made, and thick. 

She’d bartered for an okay amount of Gil and an actual blanket. It was dirty and worn, but it was large enough to cover herself and cheap enough that no one would steal it. If she’d ever tried to haggle before, she might have managed better results. But she had never had to, having been born in a world where prices were static.

She hadn’t done a lot of things she was doing now. 

She slept wherever she could get away with, huddling herself into small spaces and praying her sleep apnea didn’t give herself away. It was worse here, where the air was thick with smog and dust and dirt. 

She didn’t have a choice though. She wasn’t willing to go to Wall Market. Not yet. Hopefully, not ever. It wasn’t the sex work that was the problem, not exactly. It was the fact that she knew it wasn’t _safe_ sex work, the fact that it was hosted by a man who wouldn’t hesitate to rape and murder women.

She stayed away from Wall Market. 

But she wasn’t unnoticed in Sector Five. The people who she’d given her name were constantly getting it wrong, but she _was_ noticed.

Astraea was thirty, but she knew she looked younger. She’d been getting comments like that for years. The past couple of months living rough under the plate had taken away the lingering weight she’d been ashamed of, but it had also taken away the weight she’d once struggled to make. She was thin and somewhat short, but her breasts had always been large and she could pass for plain but pretty. There was evidence of weight loss, but it was mostly hidden under her clothing. She’d not much of it, a few tops, a pair of thick leggings, and her pajama pants. But, more than she’d started with. 

She was good at fitting in uncomfortable places, which meant she was becoming known around the sector as someone willing to do odd jobs for little money. Deliver messages or packages, climb onto things, chase after cats or children who ended up somewhere they were too afraid to leave. _Ask for Estrella, she can help._

She didn’t take jobs from the Leaf House, precisely. They sometimes let her sleep behind the kitchen, but she didn’t make a habit of it because it wasn’t fair to the other vagrants. Still, she ran errands for them and refused payment for it when she had the time available. She liked the place, respected the people too much. 

She hadn’t worn shoes in months, and her feet were flatter and calloused to prove it. 

She was in the best shape of her life, and she hated that it was by necessity. 

-x-

Astraea had been a part of Sector Five for nearly a year when she met Aerith Gainsborough. Aerith was sixteen years old, and Astraea knew for the first time when things were going to change. 

She took Aerith’s request, a letter to be hidden at the station behind a Loveless poster, and tried not to let her hands shake. 

She was followed the whole way there. She never saw them, but she could feel it. 

They stopped watching once Aerith handed over the ten Gil she was promised, but Astraea didn’t stop feeling paranoid for weeks. 


	2. Branching Out

##  _Branching Out_

She’d been in Midgar for almost a year and a half when she got her first request to leave the sector. It wasn’t exactly safe, but she was small and quick now. And well, the money would keep her fed for weeks.

She’d heard stories since she came about Wall Market. Things that fleshed it out far better than the pixels on her Playstation ever could. If she dressed professionally enough, went during the day, she should make it through Wall Market unmolested. 

Don’t stop to talk to anyone, keep a hand on her weapon, look straight ahead. 

No one needed to know her dagger was mostly a visual deterrent.

She’d used it once, the woman she’d bought it from had shown her how. She didn’t see the man she used it on again. 

She didn’t want to be involved in the plot of the future. She just wanted to survive. But... she was curious about what it looked like in Sector Seven. Was Seventh Heaven already there? Barret? She didn’t remember the timeline well enough to know, but maybe. 

Aerith would be losing Zack sometime soon. It was already too much for Astraea’s heart. 

-x-

She wore a leather jacket that she borrowed from Mireille, a pair of new black leggings that still looked clean, and borrowed shoes that she was no longer used to walking in. There was an expectation of their return, but Astraea didn’t know if it was more about the incentive for her survival or a pure desire to not lose their belongings. 

Her hair was constantly wild and tangled, but one of the older women had sat down with her in the community center and gently untangled her unwashed snarls and her girlfriend had gently washed it in the basin in the bathroom. The water was nearly black when they were done, and Astraea refused to feel ashamed of it. She didn’t want to live this way any more than anyone else did. 

They’d considered braiding her hair back but ultimately pulled it back into a tight, high ponytail. She looked sleek, professional. Sure, it wouldn’t pass for it on Earth, but in Wall Market? In the slums under the plate in Midgar? She looked good. 

It was a disguise, even though it reminded her of life before all of this. 

-x-

It almost worked. Astraea made it most of the way through Wall Market following the map that she’d been given before she was accosted. An older man, with a scruffy face and a cowboy hat. _Chocobo Sam_ or one of his men. 

“Aren’t you a pretty little thing?” Astraea didn’t flinch at his words, but her fingers did twitch about her dagger. He didn’t miss the movement, just sharpened his grin at her. 

“You look about the right age to be married, little miss. You ever think about it?”

“No, not really.” She settles on gripping the hilt. It’s obvious, but she wants it to be. 

“I know just—“

“I’m not interested,” she interrupts, feeling afraid and nervous and anxious, “I best be off.”

“Playing hard to get—”

She interrupts him with her body this time, stomping on his foot with her own as hard as she can manage before bolting backward. She’s playing with fire and she knows it. 

“Ah, Hana, pleased to see you arrived,” a woman says, long manicured nails pulling Astraea away from the man, “thank you for looking after my dear girl, Patrick.”

Not Chocobo Sam, then. Still trying to find the Don a bride though. Or perhaps trying to snag himself a woman? 

Astraea doesn’t have to look at the woman in the face to know who she is though. _Madam M’s territory is marked._

Madam M is beautiful and cold, and Astraea is _very much_ reminded of how attractive people can be. 

“I am sorry about the... lack of decorum. I’m afraid that new women tend to catch the eyes of the bottomfeeders even in the daylight.”

“I appreciate the assistance, Madam,” she demurs as politely as she can manage, “how can I repay your courtesy?”

Astraea only hopes she can pay the price. 

“You are Sector Five’s messenger girl, are you not?”

Astraea doesn’t answer. There’s no point. Madam M clearly knows the answer already.

“As expected. You do clean up quite nicely,” the woman says, leaning into Astraea’s personal space. She slips the edge of a finger under Astraea’s collar and Astraea has to internally struggle not to shiver under the feeling. Attraction, fear. Both?

“I find myself in need of a few packages passed along between Sector Five and Seven. If you think you can handle this?”

“The first one is free,” she replies absent-mindedly, “after that will depend on the size of the package, difficulty of delivery, and additional danger charges.”

“Oh, ho, ho. I do believe I’ll enjoy working with you, my dear.”

She does shiver at that.

-x-

By the time she’s finally out of Wall Market, she’s lost another hour. Still, she continues. 

Her hands shake the rest of the walk on. 

It’s nearly sunset when she reaches Sector Seven, and she has no idea where the building she needs is located. She wanders a bit, until she’s stopped by a man in a hat who introduces himself as Wymer of the Neighborhood Watch, and asks her all sorts of leading questions. 

Once she finally finds the weapon shop, she makes her escape from the protective man and slips away. She knocks on the door as she was instructed, and waits to be let inside. 

She’s let in by a woman about her age if she had to guess. Dirty blonde instead of dark brown hair, but her eyes are just as dark as Astraea’s own. 

“Tch, go ahead and have a seat,” the woman says, motioning toward a thick board balanced on two barrels. She sits anyway, as softly as she can. It doesn’t shake. Bolted in, maybe. She doesn’t know. 

The woman leaves into a back room, returning a few minutes later with a taller man with a burn scar down one side of his face. His eyes are still clear, which surprises her given the size of the scar. 

“Genevieve send you?”

“Gene—? Oh, no. Barrigan in Sector Five. I was asked to deliver a package.”

The man grins at her answer, “fantastic. Can I see it, then?” 

Astraea hesitates, not because she knows what’s in the envelope, but because she doesn’t know for sure he’s the one she’s supposed to give it to. 

“And you’re Haroldson, then?”

He frowns at her response before he seems to catch on, “Hubert and Mariah Fortier.”

She relaxes and hands it over. “I’m Astraea, by the way.”

His face falls when he opens it. 

“Another denial...” Hubert says, handing it over to his wife. She looks equally crushed. 

“I’m sorry to have brought you bad news,” Astraea admits, sheepish. 

“It isn’t your fault, Estrella, but thank you,” Mariah says softly, but her eyes are shining. 

  
  


-x-

She sleeps on the floor near the forge that night, warm and safe. 

-x-

Mariah is almost thirty-five, her husband former infantry for SHINRA and barely two months older. School sweethearts, had to move down into the slums when his pension dried up. Not much money goes to the few infantry that gets invalided out without dying. 

She isn’t surprised, though she might wish it. 

Magic had saved Hubert’s eye, but it wasn’t enough to stop the scarring on his face or burning away most of his left leg. He wears a brace around the leg that had cost them the house his parents left him, but he still needs a cane to walk. 

It had also left him unable to have children, which was what they’d been saving for when he was hurt. The whole reason he’d joined up. 

Astraea remembers how much she wanted children once, how much it hurts to lose that. 

-x-

  
Time moves on. Two weeks after Aerith stops smiling, the Fortiers sell the weapon shop and move to Sector Five. Astraea tries not to laugh when they offer to adopt her. _  
_


	3. Passage of Time

##  _Passage of Time_

Astraea stops correcting people when they call her Estrella. She starts calling Mariah her sister and gains a niece named Charlie.

She learns how to disarm someone, watches as a boy named Biggs teaches a young woman how to take over his job, starts living inside for the first time in years.

She buys a bracer with her first paycheck from Madam M and buys her first two materia within the year that follows. 

She learns how to fight. She’ll never be good at it, but she learns how to survive. 

Biggs leaves.

There’s a countdown clock for Sector Seven in her head, but she can’t quite remember how much time is left on it. 

And then, two reactors explode. She runs into a blond-haired kid with Aerith and feels everything in her turn to stone. 

Countdown. How many days are left?

-x-

  
  


The people of Sector Five love Estrella almost as much as they love Aerith. Estrella is the story of a girl with nothing who carved her way into something, even if she’ll never be more than the messenger from Sector Five. They’ve watched as a young girl with soft features turned to skin and bones, skin and bones to corded muscle. They watched as she carved out a purpose, but never took from anyone else. She struggled and panicked and lost, but she didn’t give up. 

They watched as she went into Wall Market with her head held high and came back through the next day with just as much poise. 

She works her way from sharp sticks to pocket knives to duel daggers but doesn’t hurt anyone unless she’s defending herself or hers. And the people of Sector Five are hers. 

The first time she kills a man, they watch as she cries over his body. He’d been caught killing another vagrant woman and Estrella had taken him down and then cried over the loss of his life. 

_Every life is worth something,_ she’d said, _who am I to decide when that worth ends?_

It wouldn’t be her last. Death was always her last option, but she would do it if she had to. 

Sometimes Estrella was _different_ , though. Things she said, or did, or reacted to. 

The way her face would look, sometimes. 

Estrella was worried all the time now, and when they saw her with the new merc, they feared she was in danger from him. 

But she doesn’t go after him, just looks _sad_.

When he heads to Elmyra’s for the night with Aerith, things start to come together, just a little more.

“We don’t have a lot of time, something big is coming,” Estrella says, whispering as she stalks around the sector, “tomorrow. No later than the day after.”

They don’t ask how she knows. Estrella doesn’t know some of the things they take for granted, but the things she knows are important and real. Besides, she’s been doing work in Wall Market for years. Who knows what she’s learned that way?

They listen, they prepare.

“If you know anyone in Sector Seven,” Estrella says, “have them come over for a visit. Or tell them to visit friends. But be careful.”

They’ve all heard the rumors. Avalanche. The reactor explosions. 

Estrella knows something she’s not telling, but she’s trying to prepare them anyway. 

“Please be careful,” she says, “be good.”

Estrella goes to Wall Market that night. She leaves her precious items with her cot at her sister Mariah’s. 

  
  


-x-

  
  


Astraea Edison was the name she was born with. Estrella is what her people have called her since she arrived. Fortier was the one she chose to take. The way her first name was pronounced doesn’t matter to her anymore, there were more important things. 

It was _Estrella Fortier_ who had to go to Wall Market. She had to give Cloud and Aerith and Tifa the best chance of survival. She had to do _something_. She didn’t want to be part of the plotline, but the fact of the matter was, she still had to live here. If good men do nothing, etcetera etcetera. 

She had to stop being afraid. If she died doing this, well, she would die knowing she helped to save _everyone_ , right?

She had to do it. 

She would never forgive herself otherwise. 

She wore her best clothes, strapped her daggers in. Put on her bracer, half mastered materia shining. She walked with her head held high, dark hair pulled back. 

And stepped into a future she was innately afraid to live in. 


	4. Wall Market

##  _Wall Market_

“Madam M, one of the girls saw Lady Est entering Wall Market,” one of the girls tells her, and she has an honest struggle to hide her surprise. Lady Estrella has never stepped foot in Wall Market after sunset. She’s seen the woman heading for the underpass alone to avoid it. 

Balls of steel, that woman. M has been proud of her growth for years. 

“Let her know my schedule if she needs me, keep an eye on her,” M tells the girl, who promptly nods and scampers off. Her girls are the best. Hidden, quiet, quick. 

M is worried though. Lady Estrella has known for years that stepping in town when Corneo is here and looking for a new “bride” is dangerous. She has admitted, rather vehemently, that she’s not becoming another one of his statistics. 

But she’s here, early evening on Bridal Night. 

M doesn’t know what it means. 

  
  


-x-

  
  


Sam’s kept an eye on the girl since he had to fire Patrick. Poaching potential girls from Corneo was one thing, that he did it in front of Madam M is another. Of course, seeing what he _did_ to the girls he poached is why he’s dead now. Sam only regrets that he ever hired the bastard. 

Lady Est had balls for defending herself, even if she never did know what Patrick had in mind for her. Madam M had certainly taught her a few things, but she had the mold herself first. 

Lady Est has never set foot in Wall Market a minute into the sunset or later before. An obvious, deliberate choice. 

She’s doing so now, dressed with her arms bared in a tight lacy black top, a pair of shiny gold leggings that cling to her legs, her daggers obvious at her hips, and her materia shining at her wrist. She looks like she belongs in Andrea’s world instead of her own, and Sam doesn’t know what it means. 

Something is going down. Something wild. 

Sam’s got a pickup to head out for, but he’ll be watching Lady Est as soon as he’s back. If she hasn’t gone up to the Mansion. 

  
  


-x-

  
  


Andrea Rhodea doesn’t have a lot of time in his life. Everything is meticulously scheduled for the evenings, down to how much he eats between six and nine pm. Training, practice, arrangements. Everything has to be perfect, or Corneo would push Andrea back down into stripping and sex work again. Andrea has worked hard to make sure that his girls and boys only get into sex work by _choice_ , and he doesn’t want to risk a damn thing about it. 

He doesn’t have time to visit with every Tom, Dick, or Harry that asks to see him at the front desk, so he doesn’t. What he _doesn’t_ expect, is for Claude to ask him to meet with someone for an _unspecified_ amount of time before he has to start the opening dance before the evening’s tournament preparations begin. 

Still, Andrea is intrigued. Claude is almost as picky as Andrea. 

When he enters the room, there’s a woman already seated. She’s a bundle of small, corded muscle and dressed to kill. Perhaps literally, judging by the daggers at her waist that Claude didn’t ask her to remove. 

Her face is bare and tanned, clearly natural. He finds that more intriguing than anything else. 

“Mx Rhodea,” the woman says, standing as he comes inside. She offers him a hand, calloused and rough, her fingers small but strong. He takes it, her grip firm. 

“Mix?” He asks her, and she waves her now free hand as if to punctuate a thought. 

“I’m afraid there are differing accounts of your presented gender,” she admits, looking a little sheepish, “rather than risk misgendering you, I went with the neutral.” 

It is... _refreshing_ , to say the least. He hadn’t known there was a neutral term. Hmm.

“I am Estrella Fortier. She/her if you don’t mind. You can call me Lady Est if you prefer, it’s the name I was given by Madam M.”

“You’re the courier from Sector Five. Madam M’s protege.”

She wrinkles her nose at the idea of being Madam M’s protege and it’s charming as hell. 

“There isn’t much widespread fluidity of gender outside Wall Market,” Andrea tells her, and she stiffens. Curious. 

“I’m not from Midgar,” she says after a moment, “not originally. My home was far from here. It’s... long gone now.”

Ah, there’s a bitterness there. She’s _interesting_.

“To answer your unasked question, my dear,” Andrea says as they finally sit at the elegantly dressed table, “I am he. Should that change in the future, my choice of dress should inform you.”

“That is good to know, sir.” Sir. _Sir_ . She’s _absolutely adorable_.

“How can I help you this evening, Miss Fortier?”

“Some rather... big... events are occurring tonight. Into tomorrow evening at the latest. It isn’t clear.” 

Is this woman staging a _coup?_ On _Corneo_?

“I’m willing to accept whatever you ask of me,” she says, and when Andrea meets her eyes this time he can see her years in them, “but I need your help.”

“I’m afraid I’m not in a position to go against Don—“

Her hands are quick, fingers lacing into the front of his top and pulling him harshly across the table until they’re hardly apart, her voice a low whisper that leaves him with chills, “Don Corneo is the least of our worries, Rhodea. This is bigger than Wall Market, bigger than Sector Six.”

-x-

Leslie Kyle never forgot her. The out of place girl thrown in the trash of Wall Market, the surprising heaviness of her otherwise small body as he carried her down the dark road toward Sector Five, the feel of her body against his as she rode piggyback when her legs couldn’t handle the walk any longer. The way she felt when she hugged him, or the way her skin felt under his fingertips when he considered kissing her right then and there. 

He’d fallen in love _after_ the girl, loved Marle fiercely and without a doubt and he ached with it. He missed Marle, desperately hoped she was alive though he knew she wasn’t. 

He doesn’t expect to see trash girl again. Doesn’t recognize her at first. 

The extra weight is gone from her face, the rest of her body fat replaced with muscle. She’s sleeveless and dressed in Andrea’s colors even though he knows she’s never been at the Honeybee. Her hair is pulled back and her skin is tanned and she looks prepared for something he doesn’t understand. 

“Hi,” she says, and her tone is soft but her hands linger at her hips. 

“It’s been a while,” he says once he’s fully placed her. That same warmth from when she’d hugged him twinges in him, but it’s soured by the memory of the woman he loved in her absence. 

“You’re Don Corneo’s man,” she says, and it’s a clear statement, not a question, “but you hate him.”

The attraction slips away to anger, mostly. Fear, a little. 

“You don’t know what you’re—”

“I’m not threatening you,” she interrupts, holding up a hand. There’s a scar across her palm, the unclean line of puckered flesh that comes from gripping a knife by the blade. 

“Someone is coming tonight, someone who wants to protect one of the brides. Tell him how the women are chosen.”

Leslie looks around before he steps forward and grabs her, hissing into her ear, “I didn’t get where I am by letting some—”

“He’s strong enough to win,” she says, “and it’s important. Corneo must take all three of them.”

“What—”

“They need to know what SHINRA is planning. It’s the only way to stop what happens,” she says, and she shows no sign of fear and his manhandling. 

“You’re Avala—”

She interrupts him with a snort, “heavens, no. I’m just a messenger.”

Messenger. Lady Est, Madam M’s courier. Brave as nails, young.

This woman isn’t young, no matter how she looks. There’s some grey in her hair, he can see it this close to her. 

Damn it, he’s attracted to her all over again. 

“I have to help,” she says in a low breath, but this time he doesn’t think she means to say it aloud, “they’re gonna save the world.”

Gonna save the world.

Leslie hasn’t believed in people being good in a long time. But...

“You’ll owe me,” he says, even though he doesn’t mean it. 

“I already promised Rhodea whatever it took,” she admits, and Leslie feels like the world is falling out from under him at her words, “but you can share me in whatever he decides.”

Leslie has heard a lot of things about the Sector Five messenger. About Lady Est, from Madam M alone. 

She would doom herself to sex work at the minimum if whatever she planned failed. Andrea wouldn’t be able to protect her if Corneo got wind of their plotting. _Leslie_ wouldn’t be able to. 

“Who am I waiting for?” He asks, and she relaxes against him. 

“You’ll know,” she says, and then she kisses his cheek. Her lips are soft.


	5. Decision Point

##  _ Decision Point _

  
  


The boy is young. He’s strong and trained, that much is evident by the way he carried himself alone. But he’s young. She doesn’t know why Estrella has pinned her fate on him, on either him or the flower girl. But she did, and there must be a reason for it. 

M takes him to the backroom, touches his hands, and enjoys the experience as a whole. The money certainly helps, meager as he has. She can tell by the sound of his coin that most of what he owns is now hers. 

Young and brash, perhaps in love with this mystery girl he hopes to save from Corneo. She doesn’t know. His companion is cute, but she’s seen her trailed by Turks before. It’s dangerous to deal with either of them. 

Estrella... she’d  _ asked _ . Offered favors, offered her entire life up to her and Andrea and Leslie Kyle of all people. It was important, at least to her. 

“The coliseum,” she says in more words because she needs time to figure out how to dress a doll to slay a god, “win the prize.”

They were kids playing dress-up, but... Estrella looked heartbroken. What would the cost be for this?

-x-

Lady Estrella was right, Andrea thinks, watching the couple fight. A frenetic dance, sword and staff swinging, materia arcing across the room in smooth lines. They’re bloody and exhausted by the time they demolish Corneo’s prized demonic bullshit, but successful. Andrea  _ wants _ , not that he’d take someone as young as Cloud is. But oh, he could dress him up quite nicely. Help bait the trap for Corneo, get a little revenge against the man within his agreement with the courier. 

He approaches them--of course, he does. Not  _ directly _ , no need for Corneo to be watching his every move. Still, Cloud and Aerith show up at the Honeybee and Cloud puts on a performance that has the room rocking, and the boy leaves looking stunning in Andrea’s best. 

It’s thrilling, and Andrea is excited to see what comes of it. 

-x-

Leslie does know exactly who he’s waiting for. How they had convinced Andrea and Madam M to go to bat for them is beyond him. He doesn’t know if Estrella was involved, but he doesn’t think it matters in the end. They’re inside now, and Leslie can’t do much of anything to help them. 

Another set of pawns to be discarded by Corneo. Why had Estrella wanted this?

It’s Leslie who hands over their gear and weapons, later. Bundled inside clothing delivered by Andrea himself. 

Estrella doesn’t ask him to, but Leslie does it anyway. 

They end up in the sewers, discarded goods. 

What the hell had Estrella been thinking?

They were  _ kids _ .

Leslie finds her at Madam M’s, sitting with a mug of hot chocolate between her hands. Her eyes are puffy and red from crying, her nails bitten to the quick. Andrea follows him inside. 

“What was the point in leading those kids to their death?” Leslie demands, and he knows it’s harsh and dark. 

She sniffles, ignoring Madam M’s disgusted look. 

“There isn’t much time. I wasn’t sure it was all happening tonight but it’s barely midnight.”

What else could _possibly_ be happening tonight?

The three of them share a look over Estrella’s head.

“They’re dropping the Sector Seven plate by sunrise. To route out Avalanche, they say. In truth, it’s a financial and military move. The reactors can’t handle the electrical strain, and the fewer people to deal with the better. Avalanche will take the fall. They  _ planned it. _ ”

“You’re lying,” Madam M says, even though they all know she isn’t. It isn’t hard to see the dark underside of SHINRA from down here. It never has been.

“The kids will survive. Make it out. They’ll get to Sector Seven by the time the fighting starts. I wanted to warn people, but I couldn’t risk SHINRA finding me out.”

Instead, she’s crying over hot chocolate. Shaking like a leaf. 

“You should go,” Andrea says, slumping down onto one of M’s expensive chairs.

“How could I—”

But Leslie thinks he understands the other man’s point. 

“They don’t know who Corneo chose as a bride, Estrella. You’re older, but he  _ has  _ picked older women before.”

“I... fuck,” she says, setting her mug down and pushing herself away from the table, nearly missing.

“I need a skirt. Something flowy, not tight.” She’s pulling her hair loose, and there’s a surprising amount of it that flares around her shoulders in a dark cloud. 

M finds her a swath of fabric, pins it up with practiced hands. It mimics a skirt and matches her top well enough to get away with it. 

“Be safe,” Estrella says before she bolts out the door barefoot, and Leslie thinks about that for the rest of the night. 

Going off to die for strangers, barefoot, and alone. And she tells  _ them _ to be safe. 


	6. Sector Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled with this. The original chapter six started with the aftermath, with what she does in the first few days after platefall. But, I felt like this needed to be seen? 
> 
> But it's really heavy to write that. In any case, I tried my best. I'm putting this out into the world now.
> 
> This has not been edited.

##  _Sector Seven_

Sometimes she thinks no one would understand why she’s so afraid. 

Estrella has an understanding of what, exactly, SHINRA does to people who are different. Death would be _easier_ than what she could expect from SHINRA if she’s caught. Even now, if all that comes to light is that she’s a woman from Sector Five who found out too much, what could happen would be far worse than death.

Experimentation, massacre, a hundred other little things that cut into her very soul.

But the others were right. She had an opportunity, a chance. 

She has to take it.

-x-

It doesn’t hit her until she’s fast approaching Sector Seven that her daggers are sitting on Madam M’s table, sheathes and all. Her shoes are there too, but over the years those had become incidental. No shoes would help play to her flight, the story of Don Corneo’s bride.

She hopes beyond hope that she doesn’t have to fight.

If she has to, she’ll fight to her last breath. But she hopes, oh how desperately she hopes, that it doesn’t come to that.

-x-

She makes it to Sector Seven before anyone has arrived at the support pillar, but she knows she doesn’t have much time. 

She’s out of breath, her face red and her hair a wild mess, but she’s wearing her most expensive clothes and what was probably a very expensive piece of fabric from Madam M’s stores. There’s a gash down her right shin from where she’d tripped in her hurry, blood still soaking her leggings in stark red. 

She knows how she must look, and it’s only partially intentional.

“Where’s... the... Watch?” she asks between gasping breaths, leaning against one of the food stalls. 

There’s only a handful of people around, mostly locking up their stalls for the evening. One of the men looks her up and down before rolling his eyes and disregarding her, and it makes something in her blood boil.

She steps toward him with intent, but stops short, remembering her goal here. 

“I hope no one you care about ever comes to you for help if that’s how you treat people,” she snarls, turning her back to him as she stalks further into Sector Seven.

The edge of fear finally leaves her then, only anger bubbling at the surface. She’s _furious_ \--at the man, at SHINRA, at the reality that in a few short hours, all these people could be dead--and she’ll do her damnedest to make sure that they survive.

Spite, love, kindness. Whatever means that she can protect her people, she’ll take it and run.

She has to do this.

“Wait,” someone says, and she turns to see a somewhat familiar looking woman approaching, walking with a limp. 

“Thank you,” the woman says with a huff of breath before continuing, “Biggs was talkin’ to his friends about going to Seventh Heaven, tonight. You might be able to catch him there. Wymer’s on duty near Scrap Boulevard until just past the witchin’ hour, but if you’re in a rush...”

“Thank you,” Estrella replies softly. She turns to rush off in the direction of the bar before she stops herself. “You need to get your family and start evacuating. Quietly, if you can. It’s... I don’t know how much time we’ve got, but there’s something big going down tonight. I have to go, I’m sorry.”

“Something big--wait!” the woman calls after her, but Estrella can’t wait.

There isn’t enough time.

  
  


-x-

Seventh Heaven is lit up when she finally reaches it, but there’s a private party sign over the door. She ignores it and jiggles the locked handle in frustration when it doesn’t open.

And then she pounds on the door, praying for someone to open it.

It’s Biggs who does, thankfully. The one she knows best out of the usual crew here. 

“Estrell--”  
  


“You need to get to the pillar,” she interrupts him, and he stiffens at her tone. The rest of the bar, the rest of the Avalanche crew probably, goes utterly still.

“What? Why--”

“We don’t have time for this! Don Corneo said that Shinra is dropping the Sector Seven plate.”

Faintly, as the Avalanche crew bolts to their feet, Estrella thinks she can hear the sound of helicopter blades.

Too late, and not enough?

“You have to protect the pillar,” Estrella yells, “there isn’t time!”

No. _No_ , she refuses to give up on all those lives.

“I’m going to find Wymer, get an evacuation started. Does the Watch have an emergency codeword?” she yells back at him, already halfway down the street.

“Songbird in flight!” Biggs yells back, and she looks back just long enough to see them equipping themselves in weapons and armor. She hopes it’s enough, She prays to whatever gods exist that it’s enough.

It has to be enough.

-x-

She finds Wymer armed and waiting outside the chain link fence, surprised at her sudden appearance. He drops his weapon to face the ground in front of him, stepping forward to, what, reassure her? 

“ _Songbird in flight,_ ” she says, before he can ask if she’s okay, “Everyone needs to evacuate.” She coughs as soon as the words are out, chokes on her own breath. Her chest feels tight, too much, too much.

It isn’t a panic attack, though for a second she thinks it is. Her breathing issues haven’t come up in some time, having grown used to her level of activity. Which, she far surpassed before she even started her trek to Sector Seven.

Wymer’s yelling at people to start evacuating, but she’s not really aware of anything else as she struggles to catch her breath. There’s a moment, the world suddenly as slow as molasses, when she thinks she might stop breathing entirely. And then the soft twinkling shimmer of healing materia washes over her. It’s weak, but it’s enough to steady her. Enough to stop the coughing long enough to breathe, deep and open.

“Thank you,” she shudders, tugging at her neckline even though it made no difference to her ability to breathe.

“How far do we need to evacuate, Lady Est?” Wyler asks, a hand on her back. It’s a comfort. Any surprise that he knows the name is tempered by the reality of the situation. 

“Don Corneo spilled the whole story,” she says, and the way he straightens makes it clear he understands the seriousness, “Shinra is dropping the plate.”

Wymer’s head snaps toward the support pillar, the sound of the helicopters in the distance.

“There isn’t time to waste,” she tells him, and he nods. 

They get to work.

  
  


-x-

  
  


She doesn’t remember all the little details of the original... _game_. But she does know cities. She’d spent most of her life prior in a city of eleven thousand people. Sector Seven was probably five times that, packed in a much smaller space. 

Tens of thousands of people, packed like sardines. Unknowingly waiting to be crushed like a colony of ants under foot. 

She wants to vomit. She wants to scream.

She does neither. 

  
  


-x-

“And if this turns out to be nothing more than someone’s sick joke, you’ll be back tomorrow morning ready to kick ass and take names. But if it’s not, are you willing to risk your family’s lives?”

-x-

  
  


The Plate still falls. She won’t forget the sound it makes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 7 should be posted within a few days.

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to comment~! I would love to talk with y'all.
> 
> Hit me up anywhere to harangue me into writing, talk fic, fandom, or whatever catches your fancy.  
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